Beating Heart ♔ Rey

eleven

Chapter Eleven

As soon as they landed, Rey ran out of the door, stopping once she was outside. Hester smiled and followed her, watching as Rey closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Hester said quietly, stopping by Rey's side. A small smile was on her face as she watched Rey, whose eyes were still closed, and a soft smile on her lips. She looked so peaceful, so content, and for once, not as though she was afraid of the world crashing down on her at any moment.

Rey nodded her head slightly. "Never in my dreams... I didn't think some place like this existed," she breathed.

Hester continued to stare at the girl, and then looked back out at the lake and the forest. This sight wasn't anything spectacular for Hester, you'd been all over the galaxy and seen so many different, wondrous planets. But Rey...

Hester tried to imagine seeing this planet from Rey's eyes. All her life, Rey had grown up on Jakku, surrounded by nothing but barren desert wastelands of sand, and all she saw every day was the same sand stretching endlessly, her same town, the same sky. There was nothing growing, nothing green, and every day was another harsh effort to survive, and it was a competition with the others to bring in the goods, to keep going. There was surely no such thing as friends on Jakku.

Survive. Live as long as possible. That was surely one's only goal while they lived on Jakku - apart from being able to leave the damn planet.

So to be surrounded by greenery and beauty, where life thrummed through the air and the ground, where things were lush and beautiful and there wasn't a hint of dryness anywhere... To be surrounded by so much life when Jakku had basically been death; to hear the soft, calming sounds of nature and feel a soft breeze caress your dry skin when the only thing that existed on Jakku was a still heat...

It only then struck Hester how much Rey had gone through. How much effort she needed to put in just to remain alive, to be standing where she was now. She would have had to teach herself to fight. She had to teach herself to fly to make it long distances in Jakku to be able to scavenge, just so she could have some small portion of food to eat every night.

How many times had Rey come close to starvation or dehydration? How many nights had she gone to bed hungry? Now she thought about it, Rey did look a little thin... Good nutrition surely wouldn't have been easy to come across on Jakku.

Hester's heart went out to the girl. Rey had faced death each day just as much as Hester had, maybe even more. And looking at Rey now, who looked like so many years and responsibilities and worries had been lifted from her shoulders...

The thought of that expression hardening once again made Hester's heart break.

"Hey, Rey," Hester said softly, stepping close to her. Rey's eyes fluttered open and, still shining with childlike joy, came to rest on Hester. "Why do you want to go back to Jakku?"

The smile slipped off Rey's face. She turned away, eyes lingering on the lake. The corners of her lips turned down, and she looked wistful - and a little sad.

"I'm waiting," Rey whispered. "My family... They left me when I was young. They said they'd be back one day. So I'm waiting for them... Whenever that one day is. I have to scavenge to stay alive until they do."

She sounded choked up at one point.

"Oh, Rey," Hester murmured. She opened her arms and stepped forward, enveloping the girl in a tight hug.

They stood like that for a moment, finding comfort in one another and the gentle rustle of leaves around them.

"I know how you feel," Hester whispered when they released each other. She hesitated, then swallowed and elaborated. "My best friend was turned to the Dark Side by Snoke. Snoke manipulated him, and he became Kylo Ren, and he asked me to join him. He would've killed me if I denied him." Hester blinked rapidly, tears coming to her eyes. "I've been at his side since, working against the First Order from the inside. And all that time, I was trying to bring my Ben back... but Snoke had twisted his mind. He wouldn't hear of it. And if I was too direct, he would've figured it out, and I have no doubt that I would have been killed." Hester's bottom lip trembled and she had to take a deep breath before she could finish. "So every day I looked at him and felt pain, remembering who he used to be, and comparing him to who he had been forced to become."